All I could see were feet pass by my room, but couldn’t make out faces. The male was tall with dark clothing and the female had a large purple rose tattoo on her ankle.
They were talking and laughing in the living room for a few minutes, and then I heard some keys and a door slam.
The apartment then turned eerily silent. Relieved, I concluded that they had left together.
Thank goodness that was over.
I spent the rest of the afternoon alone in my room unpacking. After my clothes were put away, I meandered out to the kitchen to make some chamomile tea and relax while I got accustomed to my surroundings. As I was pouring the boiling water, I heard the front door latch.
“Neeners!” Ryan shouted as he noticed me in the kitchen.
I placed my tea on the counter and ran over to my old friend, hugging him tightly. “Hey! I made it.”
“You did. How was the ride?” he asked.
“Not bad, just a couple of hours by bus and I took a cab here.”
“A cab? Must have been expensive. You didn’t want to take the subway from the bus station, huh? I figured.”
I looked down at my feet. “No, I’m not there yet. I have to work on that.”
Ryan had known me since I was ten and was best friends with my older brother, Jimmy. As a result, he was like a brother to me too and knew way more than he should about me, not all of it good.
Ryan sighed. “So, we’re still not taking subways, not riding in elevators, not flying. What else are we afraid of these days? Our own shadow?”
“We are working on it, Ry…I told you.”
He shook his head and tapped my shoulder lightly. “It’s only gonna get worse, Nina.”
The truth was, as of the past few years, irrational fears had started to rule my life. I avoided certain situations like the plague and would go to great lengths and inconveniences to do so, like taking a bus instead of flying from New York to Texas to visit my friend in Houston, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
Over the years, the situation had gotten progressively worse and was quite paralyzing. It kept me from doing things that I would have loved, like traveling the world. A couple of years ago, at its worst, I had started to develop a full-blown fear of leaving the house. Through cognitive behavioral therapy, I was able to overcome my agoraphobia. So, I had come a long way, but there were still a lot of phobias that remained.
This all started one day with a panic attack in high school. We were on a field trip to the New York Public Library, and a few classmates and I got stuck in a dark elevator. I had begun to hyperventilate and thought I was going to die. Fifteen minutes later, the elevator moved, but the post-traumatic stress from that moment stuck. I have gone out of my way ever since to avoid crowds, subways, planes, heights, enclosed spaces or anything else that made me feel trapped.
“How are you going to work in a hospital someday if you can’t ride in an elevator, Nina? Are you gonna tell your dying patients to press five and fend for themselves while you take the stairs?”
“Ry, I’ll have it under control by then, okay? I appreciate your concern, but I have to do things in my own time. For now, I just need to focus on school starting Monday.”
“Okay, I’ll lay off your case…for now.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “Much appreciated.”
Ryan looked around and gestured with open arms. “So, how do you like the place?”
The truth was, I was feeling a little anxious about living away from home for the first time, but I put on a brave face. “I like it. My room is a little drab but that’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”
He started walking down the hall and waved for me to follow him. “Come on, let me show you around.”
“As you know, this first room on the left here is now yours,” he said, pointing to my room.
I nodded and followed him as he entered the next room on the left at the end of the hall, which was just past mine.
“This is my room,” he said.
Ryan’s room was immaculate with neutral colors and no clutter. On his chest of drawers, there was a picture of him and my brother Jimmy boating on the Hudson River. It made me smile to see that he had it displayed. I picked up the picture and looked around the room. “Wow, ever the neat freak, as always, Ry.”
“Indeed, Troll.”
“I was wondering how long it would take before that old nickname came out.”
Ryan and Jimmy always teased me growing up, because of my resemblance to the Olsen twins from that old show Full House. They called me the missing triplet. The name started out as “‘Trolsen,” which stood for “Triplet” and “Olsen,” then evolved over time into “Troll.” Even though it was meant to be a term of endearment, it bugged me sometimes. Admittedly, with my petite build, long dirty blond hair and very large blue eyes, I did look somewhat like those celebrity twins.